Jean-Marie Cardinal Lustiger

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Jean-Marie Cardinal Lustiger, (Aaron Lustiger), French cleric (born Sept. 17, 1926, Paris, France—died Aug. 5, 2007, Paris), converted from Judaism to Roman Catholicism at the age of 13 and went on to become archbishop (1981–2005) of Paris, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in France. Lustiger always thought of himself as a Jew and worked throughout his career for Jewish-Christian reconciliation. At the same time, he was theologically conservative and sought to reenergize the church in France; in 1997 he organized a World Youth Day in Paris. Shortly before the German occupation of France in 1940, his Polish Jewish immigrant family sent him to take refuge with a Roman Catholic family in Orléans, and Lustiger was baptized there. He was ordained a priest in 1954 and appointed bishop of Orléans in 1979. Pope John Paul II named him to the College of Cardinals in 1983. Lustiger was elected in 1995 to the Académie Française.